“How do you know all these places, if you are a stranger, and where did you learn Kurdish? I am afraid you do not tell the truth about your past, my brother; were it not better to tell me at once why you are here. Your passports are defective. I have no personal animosity against you, and should like to see you often, but there are strong suspicions, and if we cannot be satisfied of your harmlessness, we shall have to deport you to Mosul.” “Good,” I said, “I am not enchanted with Sulaimania, and such a step would put me in your debt, for as I am a foreign subject, you would have to provide me with guards there, and on my arrival your Government would have to reimburse my commercial losses due to the abandonment of my business here, besides which, with the assistance of the Consul, I should be able to complain direct to the Vali of you and your methods.” With this we arrived at the Serai, or Government house, and he took me into a little office where three or four Turks were seated upon a bench, idle. These saluted me, and having asked the reason of my visit, and having been informed by the policeman, looked upon me with suspicion, and while he retired to make an appointment, asked if I had not a passport. I explained that I had all necessary passports, but that the ignorance of their officials apparently involved them in difficulties. At this they looked serious and offended, and held their peace. Anon the effendi returned, and took me down a dark passage to another little office where was a fat Turk called the “Tabur Aghassi,” and before him I was arraigned. Two or three Kurds were present, and as I knew one of them he took the opportunity to ask what the trouble was, while the policeman explained it in Turkish to the fat man. I suppose I expressed my disgust very freely, for the Kurds laughed heartily, and the policeman, who did not understand a word of Kurdish, turned sharply and asked what I was saying. Meanwhile the Tabur Aghassi was examining my English passport upside down, and looking grave. The various seals and endorsements upon the back interested him immensely, and at last he found a partially erased visé of the Turkish Consul in Kermanshah, which had been attached some time before I left that place for Bagdad.